The Agency Hour
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It's not your fault if you need something. It's not your fault if you need help. It's your fault if you don't get the help that you need, but you're not going to get fired over anything. Like let's let's figure it out and let's let's make it happen. Um, I'm here to help you and by to facilitate progress, basically. And you know, in the last couple of years, we've been talking more about outcomes versus tasks and things like that. And I delegate decisions and they they they make decisions for me. And the best example of that was disappearing for 14 days when I went to Italy and not communicating with them. And I came back and saw slack messages between them that they took care of things that they normally would have turned to me for. So now they don't have to ever turn to me again.
SPEAKER_00If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast, brought to you by Agency Mavericks.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to another episode of the Agency Hour Live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Hey uh crispy butter, how you doing? I'm doing all right.
SPEAKER_01I'm doing all right. It's getting a little chilly here.
SPEAKER_03Isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Starting to get like winter coat kind of weather here.
SPEAKER_03All right. Well, lucky the jacket's on the way in the post, I believe.
SPEAKER_01Like I gave you that layup, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, it's good. We got new we got new merch. We got new merch for agency mavericks. Um, what do you where you are, you're upstate New York, right? Uh does it like is it snow where you are? Do you like spend Christmas? Not yet. Not yet.
SPEAKER_01But sometimes it does by now, but um, you know, December, January, February, we get some, we get some snow, like three or four inches at a time. Nothing outrageous.
SPEAKER_03You have to like clear the driveway before you drive out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Really?
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01I got a snowblower to take care of that, though.
SPEAKER_03You got a snowblower, of course you have. Uh, it's so foreign to us. It doesn't rain in the city here in in Australia. It rains in the in the what we call the snow, uh, the snow, um, what do we call them? The snow fields. We call them the snow fields because they're fields full of snow.
SPEAKER_01It snows there, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It snows then, that's right. Um, fun fact, the blue mountains, sorry, the snowy mountains, not the blue mountains, uh, the snowy mountains, which are kind of in between Melbourne and Sydney. When you fly from Melbourne to Sydney, you fly over the snowy mountains. Regardless of what time of year, they're so high, there's usually snow. So you can fly there in summer and still see snow on the top of the mountains. And that snow is what melts, comes down the mountain, and forms the snowy river. And of course, if you're familiar with any Australian folklore, you might be familiar with the story The Man from Snowy River, which is actually one of our most famous poems by a famous poet called Banjo Patterson. I only know this because, well, I mean, I've known this all my life, but I know this, it's fresh in my head now because I'm teaching Oscar about the man from Snowy River. Such an amazing story, The Man from Snow River. Definitely worth checking out. Um, anyway, we're here to talk about today. We're going to do a couple of things. We're going to talk about uh team, and we're also going to show you one of our documentation things in ClickUp. We are nerds here and we like to run our business from ClickUp. And so what we are doing is we are documenting, well, we have, and we continue to document everything that we teach our agency clients, and we put it in ClickUp and we share this stuff with our clients. Most of it we only share with our clients. Every now and then we give a little bit away for free. Um, because that's what good drug dealers do. They give you a little bit for free, they get you to have a bit of a taste, and then you come back for more. Um, this, what we're showing you now, is not free. So don't ask for it, please, because you're not you can't have it, right? Unless you're a paying client. But we're going to show you anyway. So take some screenshots and feel free to rip it off. What we're going to talk about is check-ins with team members. And now this is something I didn't do for a long time because I didn't know how to, and I was terrible at it, and it used to freak me out having like a one-on-one check-in with a team member. Never used to like to do it. I used to just think everyone was fine and they were off doing their job and they didn't need a check-in. But I was wrong. I learned that people do like to have a check-in every now and then. They like to uh know that they're doing the right thing and that they're doing a good job and that they're being heard and listened to and valued. And they also like a bit of mentoring and a bit of guidance, and they like to be able to course correct if they're off track. What's your usual, I'm just gonna throw you on the spot here, what's your usual uh cadence for checking in with your team members, crispy butter?
SPEAKER_01So we do a uh every every day we I just check. I actually because they're in the Philippines and uh video is not always great, and especially in one of one of my employees, we just kind of handle it on Slack, which I know is not ideal, but um, and we there's only three of us, or three of them and me. So I chat them every day and ask them to give me the following update. What did you accomplish yesterday? What are you gonna work on today? And what do you need help with? That's really that's really the three things I ask them every day. One of them is kind of more of a project manager, so I meet with them once a month, once a week to kind of make sure everything's cop aesthetic.
SPEAKER_03So copisthetic? Yeah, what the hell is that word? I don't know this word. How do I not know this word? I'm 48 years old. I thought I knew all the words. Copesthetic? What the hell does that mean?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. It's an it's it's a it's a higher level word. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's beyond my intelligence, is it we didn't give you guys that dictionary, right? It's it's a it's a word reserved for the elite copisthetic. Someone of course. How do you spell copisthetic? How do you spell copacetic? Copisthetic. Here we go. Copisthetic. Copesthetic, meaning copisthetic is an adjective, is an adjective. Ah, copacetic. Copacetic. Copacetic is an adjective that means fine, okay, or satisfactory. It is pronounced copacetic. Never never seen that word before. Why don't you just say satisfactory instead of making up fancy words just to confuse the Australian? The Australian, that's exactly right. What I'm curious about is most people won't tell you that they need help until it's too late.
SPEAKER_01Yes, this is true. And and this can also be a cultural thing. Definitely. Um I think I've gotten them like they've all been with me for some of them six years, five years, and I think two years now. So so the culture that I've tried to build is one that like it's not your fault if you need something. It's not your fault if you need help. So just it's your fault if you don't get the help that you need, but you're not gonna get fired over anything. Like, let's let's figure it out and let's let's make it happen. Um, I'm here to help you and by to facilitate progress, basically. So you've got your job. And and you know, in the last couple of years, we've been talking more about outcomes versus tasks and things like that. And I delegate decisions and they they they make decisions for me, and you know the bet and the best example of that was disappearing for 14 days when I went to Italy and not communicating with them. And I came back and saw Slack messages between them that like they took care of things that they normally would have turned to me for. So now they don't have to ever turn to me again. So when something goes wrong or when they mean need something, sorry, when they need something, um they need to raise their hand and let me know, you know.
SPEAKER_03And um uh a little bit off topic, but how do you then and and I think you just touched on it because when you went to Italy for 14 days, uh they didn't have you there. But then if they if they need something and they turn to you, how do you then prevent you becoming the conduit through which every decision needs to be made in the agency? Like how do you get them talking to each other more?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's not easy. And now that I'm back, I think they kind of fall back into their own, their old habits of reaching out to me for the things. Um, you know, and right now I'm I'm actually only working five, four to five hours a week a day in my agency because I'm coaching with you for the other part of it. So um, and they know that. So they know that I'm only available certain times. So for me, that's it's it's a matter of I'm not available, so figure it, figure that shit out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and uh and I think also there's there's a a lot of people are afraid to make a decision because they don't want to make the wrong decision. So how do you make it okay for them to make a mistake? Make a mistake, yeah. How do you how do you make it okay for them to make the wrong decision?
SPEAKER_01It's just a matter of when they make a mistake proving that it's okay for them to make a mistake. Because they are everybody makes mistakes, and um when those, especially when they're first starting out, like when they make a mistake, turn it into a learning experience and and you know, figure out where the hole is, blame the process and not really them. I mean, not blame, but you know, like let's figure out, let's get this in the process so that this doesn't happen again, that kind of thing. I mean, it depends on what it is, of course, but yeah. Um only one of my employees is really truly client-facing. So she's she, you know, other other mistakes we can kind of quickly adjust. Yeah, yeah, cover off it's the it's the bad messages or you know, lack of message, lack of communication, those are the things that we worked on lately. And um, you know, she's getting better. And she knows that, like, you know, I'm not the only the only way I'm gonna fire them is if they're stealing from me. Like I'm not gonna fire somebody because they make a mistake.
SPEAKER_03Do you do you think that's the fear? Do you think people are afraid of losing their job?
SPEAKER_01I think they are. I think they are. Yeah, and mine are. I don't know about everybody, but mine my employees, I think that that's like the cultural thing. Like they're afraid if I make a mistake, I'm gonna be done. Like I'm I'm out of here. So I've had to I've had to build that culture that it's okay to make mistakes. Do you think also when I make a mistake, I own it in front of them? Like that's totally on me. That was my fault, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Do you think also there's a fear of looking stupid? Do you think also there's like not only the not only the fear of losing my job, but there's a fear of like letting the rest of the team down, and there's like a fear of embarrassment?
SPEAKER_01I I think it is, yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03One of the things I know about uh um, especially in the Philippines too, is that there's um a lot of pride. I know that m our team are very proud of the fact that they work with us, right? And uh it is it's a not a status thing, but it it's something it's kind of like they they feel very proud to you know say to their family and their friends, you know, they're working with an Australian company or an American company.
SPEAKER_01I think there is something there, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um the other thing I've learned. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The other thing I've learned. I feel no prestige working for you.
SPEAKER_03Like I know, I know. And that's something different. I know, I know. That's something we need to talk about too. Um is um the uh the the other thing I've learned over the years is that uh um like I just I was talking to someone the other day who was, you know, an agency, and they're like, oh, you know, we I couldn't hire someone in the Philippines that would talk to my clients. I'm like, really? What talk me through that? What is that? Like you talk to my team in the Philippines, like you're a client of mine, you talk to my team in the Philippines, like what's the problem? Um uh what I I've learned over the years is that it just doesn't matter where people live.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_03It just doesn't matter where people live. As long as we can as long as we can communicate with each other in like uh in in the same language, right? Uh, then it doesn't really matter where people live. In fact, I think my belief now is that you actually restrict your growth by only saying, well, we're just going to hire people locally. Good luck. Particularly if you're in Australia, good luck trying to find good talent to come work in your agency in Australia.
SPEAKER_01And still make a profit.
SPEAKER_03Well, not only that, they're not available.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03Right? They're just not available. They're entitled, they have a sense of entitlement, right? We live in a very, very, very, very, very fortunate country. Although here's a fun fact: the there's a think tank in London that do a survey every year that rates 165 countries on a whole bunch of criteria that basically rates the quality of life in those countries, right? In 2008, Australia was numero uno. We were ranked the number one place in the world to live, the number one country in the world to live in 2008, based on wealth, health, education, quality of life, uh, civil engagement, uh, employment opportunities, right? All that kind of stuff. Yeah, all that in 2000 and uh I think it was around 2012, we had slipped to like fifth or sixth, right? This year, surveys just come out. Survey says Australia is 16th in the world. Guess where America is? 73rd. 20th. You're too harsh on yourself. America is 20th. Number one, Denmark, number two, Norway, number three, Sweden, or those Scandinavian countries. You know why though? They're so heavily freaking taxed, those countries. Like you pay half, you pay 49% tax, right? But there's amazing infrastructure, there's amazing welfare, there's amazing health and education because they're so heavily taxed. Um, and the governments can afford to be progressive, like give tax rebates to people who only ride their bike to work and don't use cars. And that's how they deal with things like pollution and congestion. Anyway, in Australia, we live in a very, you know, probably as as very similar in the UK and America, but we live in a very fortunate part of the world. We're uh inherently a little bit lazy in Australia. Uh we we're not very we expect that we will have a job and a good job and that we'll be well looked after and well paid, right? That's an expectation, right? And we don't want to commute an hour and a half to work. Fuck that. Why would we do that? We can just work from home in our pajamas, especially because the pandemic has now proven that, right? So good luck trying to get someone to come and work in your office if you're a digital agency in Australia. If you do find someone, they're gonna cost you a vital organ, right? Uh to get them to come and work for you. They might hang around six months until they, you know, find another opportunity. So the talent pool is just small. I mean, there's 26 million people live in Australia, right? Versus 350 million in America. Uh, the talent pool is small here. We're entitled, we have massive expectations, and you need to pay us a shitload of money because it's expensive to live in Australia. So, why would you restrict the growth of your agency by just uh by just looking in a local talent pool, right? Uh so what I like uh you know to think about is like where where are the talented people, right? And the other thing is that because the opportunity exists for people in the Philippines or India or Bangladesh or Thailand or Indonesia that are you know still developing economies and the and the cost of living there is cheaper than here, there's an opportunity that exists for those people to work for Australian or American or UK or New Zealand companies, right? And get paid better than if they were working for a local company. And so what that's done is that's pushed up the demand, right, and and the supply. So what I mean is that there's so many people in those parts of the world that study their arse off and learn how to become really good developers, really good designers, good copywriters, good social media managers, good SEO, right? And so the supply is just far greater. Like Australians don't study their ass off to become great engineers, right? I mean, not not the like the percentage, like a small, much smaller percentage of Australians put their head down and their bum up and become, you know, really good at something because we just have that sense of entitlement that it's gonna we're just gonna become entrepreneurs or we're gonna become managers, we're gonna leave university and become managers, right? Right.
SPEAKER_01I think I think in in countries like the UK and US and Australia, New Zealand, there's less of a I absolutely have to become really good at this to survive mentality. Like in in the third world countries, like they need to do that to support their entire family. Like my my project manager literally supports her mother and her sister.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, we have we we have, I mean, you know, there's a whole other argument that I'm gonna get in trouble for, but we have welfare here in Australia. Right. So it's not, I mean, sure, it's it's kind of below the poverty line, right? But our poverty line is still, comparatively speaking, yeah, to other parts of the world, our poverty line is is you know is is ridiculously high, right? Um uh compared to, I'm gonna come back to that comment in a minute, anonymous Facebook user, yeah, um, and and tear you uh a new way of thinking. Um because uh our poverty line here is like if you if you if you're unemployed in Australia, there is some basic welfare that you can get access to, right? You are not going to go, you are not gonna go hungry, right? Uh I mean, this is I know someone's gonna someone's gonna flame me for this and bring it on, but compared to other parts of the world, we have it extremely good. We were extremely lucky and fortunate in this in this country, right? Yep. Right. And so what that means is that there is not a Pete's right, there's not a a desperation to upskill and and and develop some new skills to then go and get a job because we're really we're very fortunate that we can kind of pick and choose what we kind of want to do, right? Um now I'm not justifying anything, by the way, anonymous Facebook user. Who is that anonymous Facebook user? Who left that comment? Um, I don't need to justify shit, by the way. I'm not justifying anything, right? Let me tell you something. If I if we hadn't built a team in the Philippines when we first started out, there is no way uh Sam Crow, hey buddy. Uh if we hadn't built a team in the Philippines to begin with, there is no way I would now be able to hire Australian staff.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Right? Because they're just too expensive.
SPEAKER_01You would never be able to afford me, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_03That's right. I would never be able to have you know coaches in the US and now staff in Australia and in New Zealand, right? I mean, New Zealand's more expensive than Australia, right? Yes, it is live. Yes, New Zealand's more expensive than Australia. I remember the first time I went to Auckland and I got into a taxi from the airport to the hotel and I watched the meter going in the taxi. I'm like, holy shit, this is the most expensive taxi I've ever been in in my life. And it's because petrol's like $48 a liter over there, right? And Auckland is a ridiculously expensive part of the world. It's way more expensive than Sydney, right? Property prices over there are just nuts, uh, which was a real eye-opener when I first went to New Zealand. So the point I'm trying to make is that if you're starting out as an agency in Australia and you want to hire Australian staff, then I hope you've got a massive runway and shitloads of cash in the bank because you're going to need it. Not only the wages, but the cost of employment, right? Cost of employment like superannuation and work cover and all those extra. You listening, Max in the green room? Are you listening? How freaking expensive it is to just have you on the books, brother. I hope you appreciate it. I hope you appreciate it. Good.
SPEAKER_01Now, so uh how can I address that question, that thing too? Actually, for just a quick second. So we get that, we actually get that a lot here. There's certain political element over here that is really against offshoring, as the I'm sure they are.
SPEAKER_03With all their smartphones in their pocket, with all their smartphones in their pockets that are made in China, I'm sure they're really against my thing is I run a business that has me, three full-time employees, and one part-time employee who lives right down the street from me.
SPEAKER_01Um, the other three are all in the Philippines, and I pay them a decent wage in the Philippines for their economy. The other thing that I do, and would not I couldn't run this business without them. I would be just a little freelancer doing one website every couple of months and and making $25,000 to $35,000 to $40,000 a year. And guess what? I'd only be helping five companies every year. Now I can help a lot more businesses be successful because I'm helping some people in another world country, and I'm helping those businesses as well. And I wouldn't be able to do that without my Filipino staff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. Exactly. And you know, everyone, you know, oh man, I I was at a conference in in Western Australia years ago, and uh this guy stood up and and gave this this this presentation on why you should never on on why if you out Source work to India or the Philippines or Indonesia or Thailand or wherever, right? And then you charge your clients, you know, full tote odds to build a website that you're basically ripping people off. So I just I, you know, it was a room full of people, and I just let him go. And then at the end, I I I asked some questions. Because he've never had staff overseas. I'm like, dude, fuck are you talking about? You've never had staff overseas. You don't even know what you're talking about. I'll tell you what this is. This is fear. You are scared. You are scared and you think it's wrong and you think it's unethical and you think it's immoral and you think people are ripping people off because you are scared because you've never done it. Right. So here's here's a here's a couple of things uh that I think you know you should consider. One is it's not just economics, it's the talent pool. There's just a far bigger talent pool in that part of the world that have the skill set that we need.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Right. The talent pool in Australia is really freaking small. And it is from a source of fear that I have concerns that I've never done it. There you go, exactly. Uh and it when I first when I first hired, uh, we had a team in India who were doing some work for us who were amazing. We lucked out we found this guy, ball winder, who was just freaking incredible. And he had a team working for him. So we could just throw whatever we wanted at him and they would just nail it. And we were just like, holy shit, that was he was incredible. I first hired my first VA in the Philippines, Norman, and I got it wrong. I totally screwed it up. I had no idea what I was doing. I mismanaged him, I thought he was a unicorn. I expected him to be a unicorn. I expected him to do like edit videos, build websites, design logos, manage my calendar, do all this kind of stuff. And then someone took me aside and said, listen, you've hired someone in the Philippines to do a job that it would take six people to do in Australia. Why do you think one person has all of those skills? Because they're a virtual assistant, right? So I flew over to the Philippines and met Norman and we hung out and uh went swimming with whale sharks and uh it was an amazing experience. I realized that he was in the wrong seat. I realized that he was a he was a he was an awesome human being, but he I he was there's no way he was going to be successful in the role that I needed him to do. So we fired him, and it was totally my fault, right? We let him go, we let him flourish and we let him go elsewhere. Uh then I started to really get to know Michelle in the Philippines, who was working uh with my business partner at the time, and we brought her into the company, and I started to really get to know Michelle, and we turned the videos on, and we started to get to know I started to get to know her as a human being, right? And then I went back over to the Philippines and hung out with our whole team. And then we went to Thailand and hung out on a team retreat, and I got to know them as people. And now, like, I mean, I mean, you know, Michelle basically runs the place, right?
SPEAKER_01And not only that, but we were talking about talking to our customers. Michelle is our most beloved amongst our clients. Michelle is our most beloved employee, like hands down, not even close.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You hear that, Max? I love just giving Max shit.
SPEAKER_03Um uh and and and and now, and Michelle is also a recruiting unicorn, so she now recruits for us and also recruits for our clients. And we have this great talent pool uh in in the Philippines um that we're developing. Uh, Michelle's sister is also now working with us to do some recruiting, and she is awesome indeed. And so here's what I've one of the things I've learned over the years is that if you hire people and then just leave them alone and neglect them, it's not gonna work out. You need to communicate with your team on a regular basis. So, what I want to do today is I want to dive into a framework that we've built for having what we call a check-in with team members. Now, full transparency, this is part of our team accelerator program. Our team accelerator program is where we recruit a team member for our clients from our talent pool in the Philippines, whether it's a designer, a developer, an SEO, a project success manager, a client success manager, a social media manager. I think the only roles that we're not recruiting at the moment are copywriters and ad managers, uh, but we're working on it. So part of that process is not only do we find the talent and pre-vet them and put them through, you know, English proficiency tests and internet speed tests and technical tests and all that kind of stuff, but we then also coach our clients how to interview. There's a whole recruitment pipeline that we manage for them. Uh, and then we coach our clients how to, we hold their hand every step of the way and get that new team member hired, onboarded, um, you know, all the contracts signed, all that kind of stuff. And then we help our clients manage them over the first 30 days because we offer a 30-day guarantee on all of our candidates. So if the candidate doesn't work out, we replace them.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03So part of what we do in Team Accelerator is we have a whole bunch of documentation. And I'm just going to share my screen now. We have a whole bunch of documentation and a recruitment pipeline that we set up and we manage it all in click up. So the recruitment pipeline looks something like this. Uh, this is just dummy data in here. We have a whole bunch of applicants come in here, we then make a short list, we then put them through three different interviews. They either end up on the bench or we make them an offer or they get disqualified, right? And that all comes through an application form. Once we've pre-vetted the applicants, we might get, I don't know, 15, 20, 25 applicants for a role. We pre-vet them, find the top three, and then get the top three to fill in an application form like this. Once they fill in that application form, they then land in the recruitment pipeline. And then we coach our client how to move them through the recruitment pipeline and make a decision. What I want to talk about today, though, is specifically part of our documentation is what we call a check-in. So we have all this documentation here around job scorecards and job ads and all that kind of stuff. But what I want to talk about here today specifically is the check-in. Once you hire someone, how do you check in with them over the first 28 days to make sure that you're setting them up for success? Okay. So why check-ins matter? Well, check-ins show your new team member that you care about their success in the role and allow you to mentor them and course correct early and often. What I've done in the past, the mistake I've made and what I see happening is that uh that you hire someone and then you kind of think, well, they're okay. They know what they're doing, they're a grown-up, they'll do their job. And we don't communicate for a few days or a week or 10 days. And what happens is you kind of get away from each other, right? Your expectations, your expectations and their expectations kind of start to get away from each other. And before you know it, you're here. And it's harder to get back in alignment. It's the same with client relationships. What I like to do is kind of check in more regularly and course correct early and often so that you don't have to bridge such a big gap. So that's why I think check-ins are important. And just to be clear, a check-in is a 20-minute call scheduled in advance that gives you and your team member the opportunity to stay connected and make sure expectations are being met on both sides of the relationship. It's not just about them meeting your expectations, it's about you meeting their expectations. Right? What one of the questions I like to ask new hires is uh, do you have any buyers' regret? Right? You've been here a week now. Do you have any buyers' regret? Any any are you still thinking this is a good decision? Let's just have that conversation. Now, this is not a huddle, by the way. Someone said check-in every day. Yes, we do. We have a daily huddle every day with our whole team. This is a one-on-one check-in. Okay. Usually in the first month, I would like to do this every week. And then after that, probably once every two weeks, depending on how big the team is. And this is a one-on-one check-in. It's not a daily huddle. We do a daily huddle every day, which is a whole other conversation. Any questions about this so far from anyone?
unknownNo?
SPEAKER_03Okay. So uh how to run a how to run a check-in. Well, here's the agenda that we use, right? So the agenda we use is we start with a win. Okay, so we always start with, let me highlight that. There we go. We always start with a win. And uh, that's just a good opportunity for us to get into a positive state of mind. And also it gives the team member an opportunity to share something that's worked well for them or uh something they want to celebrate, right? So and I literally just start by saying, hey, let's share some wins. What's uh if I'm doing this every week for the first four weeks that they're in the organization, uh, you'll say something like, Hey, what's uh share, share a win over the last seven days? What's something that's gone really well or a win that you've had in the last seven days? And people might be humble about sharing this, they don't want to brag, but this really encourages them. Yeah, really encourage them to share something that's uh that's worked well. Um and celebrate it. You know, encourage them. Well done, good on you. That's excellent, well done. And and and then if they haven't shared that with the team, with the rest of the team, encourage them to share that win with the rest of the team to kind of pump themselves up, or give them kudos right in front of the rest of the team. Praise them in front of the rest of the team. The second thing we do is then uh share any lessons. So segue into any recent lessons learned. Cool. So what have you learned over the last week? Now, these are things that can can have uh then have been a disaster, something that broke, something that didn't go well, something that failed, or something that we've learned that is just going to be helpful to share. Well, I learned that using Bitbucket to do version control is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. I don't know what I'm talking about, by the way. I'm just making things up. Um, or I learnt that, you know, um what whatever it is they learn, right? Um uh if they it's a problem if they haven't learnt anything. If someone's saying, well, there are no wins and no lessons, then that's a big red flag. Like, have you been here? Have you been working? Right? We're learning things all the time, every day. So what are the lessons that you've learned that are good for you or that you want to share with the rest of the team? And then I want to get, I just want to get stuck straight into focus. And a lot of this comes from the job scorecard. You should be, they should be very clear about what outcomes they're responsible for if they've got a job scorecard for the role. If they haven't, then you need to develop a job scorecard for that role with them, preferably as a collaborative thing. So once I've done wins and lessons, I'll then say, cool. So what's the focus for the next seven days? What are you working on over the next or the next few days, right? What is the focus? What projects are you working on? What are you working on? Uh, what I'm looking for here is I want to make sure that what they're working on is in alignment with the outcomes on their job scorecard and that they're not off down some rabbit hole and they're getting distracted. It's very easy to get distracted when you sit on the internet all day. Okay. So what uh what is the focus? And we'll have a conversation about that. And then I'll say, great, what do you need to succeed? What do you need from me or the rest of the team? Training, resources, coaching, mentoring, software, guidance, information, like what is it you need? Um, one example, we've got a session tomorrow morning with a clickup trainer, well, a clickup expert out of um uh San Diego who's coming in to give us some training around ClickUp because we've got some, I reckon we've got some knowledge gaps in ClickUp. We're doing a pretty good job, but I know we can be doing better. So I've just found a ClickUp expert to come in and teach us how to use ClickUp a little better and you know, or just look at what we're doing, and she might just go, yep, you guys are on fire. Just keep doing what you're doing. Great, that's all we need to know, right? Um, and that's just come out of conversations that I've had with the team. The team didn't necessarily ask for it, but I'm giving it to them anyway, and I'm gonna be a part of that training. And I just want to know that we've got someone else outside the organization as a third party that we can send stuff to to go, hey, are we doing this right? Is this best practice? Is there a better, more efficient way of doing this? Okay. So my job and your job as an agency owner is to clear the path and make sure your team have everything they need to succeed. Right. And if you don't have a team right now, that's fine. This is just future pace and just park this stuff for future, okay? The the way like I had a conversation with our sales team this morning, and we've had a couple of calls rescheduled this week because people are agency owners have been coming to us going, look, I really want to have this conversation, but I'm up against a hard deadline. I need to push this back by a week. My initial response to that is great, sounds like you need another team member. Because here's the context. You've reached out to us to have a conversation about whether or not we can help you grow your agency, and now you're pushing that call back because you're up against a hard deadline. So you see what's happening here? You are sacrificing working on the business because you are stuck working in the business. Sounds like you need another team member. Right. Um the the point I'm trying to make is that I promise you, you will cap the growth of your business if you don't build a team. If you try and do everything yourself, you are just going to put a ceiling on how much you can grow because there is only one of you. So building a team of some description, whether it's two of you or three of you or 20 of you, building a team of some description is the only way to get through that ceiling. And as you build a team, your job is to is to clear obstacles and get out of the way and let them do their job. So that you can reap the rewards and the profit as the business owner, because you're taking all of the risk. That's your job as an agency owner, is to take the risk, have the vision, add value, bring clients on, and have the team deliver. And you take the profit as the business owner. That's your job, and that is your right as the business owner to take the profit because you're taking all the risk. Reinvest some of that profit back into the business, into training, resources, tools, whatever, development, right? And get out of the way and let your team do their thing.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03So what are that? What do you need from me? I this I always ask every call. I'd say, what do you guys need from me? And then I like to recap with a uh WWW. So who is gonna do what by when? And I just run this in a little Asana, uh, so we use Asana in-house. We're using click up to distribute this stuff to our clients, you guys, but we actually use Asana in-house. So we just I just have a little agenda in Asana for each team member, a one-on-one agenda. And we just run this in Asana. Who's gonna do what by when? And so the next time we meet, I go, cool. So you were gonna do that by when? How'd you go? Yep, cool. Any wins? Great. Any lessons? Okay, what are you focused on? What do you need? Sweet. 20 minutes and we're done. Anyone want to challenge me on this stuff or have any specific questions about this?
SPEAKER_01John said there's a lot of rabbit holes, but um I'm not sure what she means by that. Which I don't know what part of the conversation she said that, so it might have been special.
SPEAKER_03There are a lot of rabbit holes indeed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and the way to avoid rabbit holes, Joan, is to have a plan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Have a plan. If you don't have a 90-day plan, you're gonna get you're gonna get pulled into every rabbit hole that that exists.
SPEAKER_01So Martin wants to run this as a one-to-one or team meeting?
SPEAKER_03This is this is a one-on-one. This is a one-on-one.
SPEAKER_01The huddle is the huddle is not a one-on-one, but this is a one-to-one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the huddles are slightly different. Our huddle is kind of like the framework that you mentioned before, which is um what are you working on over the next 24 hours? What are your numbers and where are you stuck?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03That's our huddle framework. This is a one-on-one framework, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because we have such a distributed team, we automate that huddle in Slack.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's something that people may may or may not know that they can do. I think you have to have pretty good communication between your team in order to do that, to just automate it like that and just have it in Slack. And then somebody's got to be somebody, mainly you, the business owner, has to be responsible for checking on it every day to see what they need and see what the where they are with their project manager. If you have a project manager, yeah.
SPEAKER_03We we use um we use a uh a bot in Slack to automate it to just ask those questions every day that people just uh answer.
SPEAKER_01Daily bot.
SPEAKER_03Daily bot, that's right. Daily bot's amazing. Daily bot integrates with Slack and allows you to do all sorts of cool stuff. Like give people kudos.
SPEAKER_01Give people kudos and and all that kind of stuff. Check in on how their weekend was. Yep. I love Max's response to how was the weekend? Every Monday. Max's response to how was the weekend? Fine.
SPEAKER_03He's a man of many words.
SPEAKER_01Way to elaborate. Way to elaborate, Max.
SPEAKER_03He's a man of many words. Hey, uh, let me know in the comments. Is this useful? Do you guys run check-ins with your team? Do you guys have a team? Uh if you don't have a team, do you want to build a team? Who would you hire next? Uh, if you could build a team, if you could wave a uh a magic wand and um and hire someone on the team next, who would you hire? Uh let me know. Give me some feedback in the in the in the chat. Uh James says, need a team. Who do you need next, James? Dude, just pull the trigger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're in you're in Mavericks, dude. So pull the trigger. If you need a team members, let us know.
SPEAKER_01Talk to your coach.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, that's right. Get your org chart done and uh identify who you need next. Christina Varro says, I need a project manager. So hard to find.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Where have you been looking, Christina? Where have you been trying to hire? Project Manager is interesting. We um we uh I I I I'm a fan of the project success manager, which is kind of a hybrid between a project manager and a client success manager, or a project manager and an account manager, right? Um it's kind of a hybrid between those two, a a project manager and an account manager. I call it a project success manager. And um, we're hiring project success managers right now for some of our clients. Um Libby Herbert, need a web dev in the new year. Max just hired a growth plan manager. Well done, Max. Um James needs a PM, a developer, and a designer. Well, talk to us, dude.
SPEAKER_01A lot of our clients, a lot of our community here is of they they run a very small team. So it's it's the business owner and maybe a designer and a VA. Like what's is is the cadence different? Is is the meeting different? Is like is anything different if you have a small versus a huge team?
SPEAKER_03No, not for me. I mean, the the thing is if you've got like a like I don't do this with every one of our team members because there are, you know, whatever, I don't know, 17 or 18 of them, and there's one of me, so I can't do it with every team member. I don't think you should do this with any more than kind of five or six or seven, right? If you've got if your team is bigger than that, then you know, your your it depends on like you should have people report to other people. So if you've got a team of engineers, for example, you should have a lead developer. Say you've got three developers, one of those should be a lead developer. That lead developer should be having a one-on-one every couple of weeks with the other developers, just to make sure, hey, what resources do you need? Do you want it, do you need some more skills? Do you need some more training? What do you need? Right. And then feeding that back to you as the agency owner.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03So if you have a if you have an SEO team and you have like four or five SEO strategists and you've got a lead SEO strategist, then the lead SEO strategist should be having that conversation with your, with the the other SEO team. Or your ops manager should be having that conversation with the team leads, right? So I don't think you can have one-on-ones with any more than sort of, I don't know, maybe five to seven people, anything bigger than that. And then you should have other people run one-on-ones with other team members. And then you just so you know, if I had a one-on-one with Pete, for example, as head of coaching, Pete would have a one-on-one with the coaches and then feed that stuff back to me. So, Nick, we we are only hiring uh at the moment from our talent pool in the Philippines. So, yeah, no, probably can't help you with on-site client IT support jobs at the moment, unfortunately. So if any, if you guys are looking for, if you guys are serious about looking for a team member, let us know and we will have a conversation with you about what that looks like. And we'll save you a whole bunch of time and we'll just get a team member. It's a three-month engagement, we guarantee a team member for 30 days. So if they don't work out, we just replace them. So, you know, it just saves you a whole bunch of time. Yes, there's a fee involved, and we're happy to have that conversation with you, but it's going to save you a shitload of time. And then once you've got a team member on board, you've then got more time in the agency to, you know, do what you need to do, which is grow the agency and uh focus on, you know, getting more clients and doing all that kind of good stuff, right? Christina, what what have you tried? So you've tried Facebook groups, local WordPress group, and Upwork. What's not working? Like, why haven't you hired a you're looking for a project manager, right? It's all about the process, as far as I'm concerned. Like we have a we have a really good process dialed in to uh to help hire Matt, who's one of our Mavericks, was on a call yesterday and he said he's he's uh he's just hired, he's just actually hired two people through our process. We gave him three candidates and he hired two of them. And uh he was super impressed with the process that we went through because also we only we'll only hand over the three top candidates, right? There's a whole bunch of other candidates that just aren't right, and that's just the nature of the piece, but we just eliminate those candidates so you don't waste your time.
SPEAKER_01Martin wants to know if we give guidance on rates for offshore team members.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, totally. Yeah, we can definitely guide you there. By the way, you don't pay us to pay them. We don't click, we don't, that we're not a staffing agency, it's a slightly different model, right? So we don't manage them, we don't hire them, we don't pay them. We you pay us a fee to find the candidates and coach you through the whole recruitment process, but then they work for you. You hire them as a contractor and you pay them direct. We don't clip the ticket on the way through and we don't manage them. You manage them.
SPEAKER_01We teach you how to interview them, we teach you how to hire them, we teach you how to onboard them, we teach you how to find them in the first place, but we do the finding, and then that's right. The next one you can do your own. So you know the process.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01Uh so a Facebook user, I'm not sure who that is, but is it's Doogie. That's yes, Doogie. Yes, doogie. Yes, yes, it is part. It's it's separate, but then it is part of Mavericks. So if you're in Mavericks Club, you get everything we do.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Yeah. So this is a separate offering called Team Accelerator, but uh that that we offer um separately to clients. But if you're in Mavericks Club, you get a dude. In fact, if you're in Mavericks Club, you get up to four candidates a year. Four, four team members a year you can hire through our talent pool. So if you need to hire someone, dude, uh, then let us know. Talk to your coach. Talk to your coach and we'll put you into Team Accelerator. So this has been fun, and we will see you next week on the Agency Hour. Take care, everybody.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour Podcast. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Cast, Audible, and wherever you'd like to listen. You can catch all of the agency hour episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash agency memories. Or you can get involved. Check out our free digital memories Facebook where we broadcast these episodes live in the community every week, along with it on the